[This is the second of three new log entries, which were actually
written over the past two weeks. You might want to read them in
order.]
Fancy pants is the name of Vietnam's tallest mountain. OK,
it's not exactly fancy pants, it's Fansipan though many other
spellings are common too (it means Highest Peak in a local
language, which may not have a written form with Latin characters to
produce a standard spelling... just my guess). Fansipan is in the
northern part of Vietnam. To get there from Hanoi, our group took the
night train to Lao Cai (8 hours or so), and then the bus to Sapa,
which is smack in the middle of the mountains inhabited by Vietnam's
Hmong (and other) minorities. Our mission was to reinforce the local
economy by purchasing as many handicrafts as we could, and we
succeeded.
The trip there and back was quite comfortable. Given that the average
age in our tour group is high, our group had been assigned sleeping
quarters in a second class wagon (in fact, I think age is irrelevant,
and that the tour operator, Saigon Tourist, is required to assign us
to second class or above... something silly having to do with
government restrictions on where tour operators can place tourists,
but I'm not sure). It had AC, comfy beds, free water and sweet bread
or Twinkies (well, the filling was mung bean paste, but it had plenty
of preservatives and artificial coloring to be nutritionally
equivalent to Twinkies). Also, the wagon had only four beds per cabin
while the Vietnamese section had six; first class had four also, but
the cabin seemed a tad larger. Naturally, those wagons are only used
by tourists; I don't think locals are actually prohibited --- they are
just happy with the more compressed accomodations for a much lower
price; and the price goes even lower if you take a seat (there are two
seat types actually: without a soft cushion it's a bit cheaper than
with a cushion). Anyway, the cabins were fine, but getting sleep is
another story altogether. The Vietnamese trains are not European ICEs:
they move slowly, stop fairly often at stations (not a smooth
stop/start, mind you... those sleeping on upper bunkers must be alert
to avoid dropping off their beds), and you can easily feel the gaps
between adjacent rails. I was exhausted enough on the way there to
sleep for about 6 hours, but on the way back I caught just a handful
of Z's.
At Lao Cai, we had our first exposure to tour group operations. Our
group joined many other groups, and we all had breakfast together in
the same hotel. You know, the hotel owned by the sister of the wife of
the party secretary of the local government. One of these days, I'll
ruminate more on the whole nepotism and Mafia-like qualities of Saigon
Tourist (which runs our tour group), but that'll have to wait until
the tour's over and I form a complete picture.
One thing we've noticed throughout Vietnam is that smoking is not a
big problem. I was worried that everybody will be a smoke-stack at
every single restaurant and hotel, as in Europe. In fact, smoking is
very rarely a problem. Maybe because cigarettes are a luxury, or maybe
because there is some sensibility to prohibit smoking in closed spaces
(I've seen quite a few No Smoking signs which, ironically, I've only
seen violated by French or Chinese tourists). Anyway, our breakfast at
Lao Cai, and all other meals in Sapa, were smoke-free, which made them
quite enjoyable. What wasn't that great about them was the food
itself: the group was served many seafood or spicy items, which I do
not eat. Still, in Sapa, french fries from a particular potato
(sweetish, but not a yam) are a specialty, and we ate quite a number
of them. Yum!
On the trip from Lao Cai to Sapa, I noticed a strange sight: all these
huts, made of bamboo, wood, and roofing metal sheets and yet... many
had a satellite dish on top! The tour guide said how Unicef (a
development branch of the United Nations) recently gave each household
a plastic water tank so that they can collect rainwater for drinking
(instead of using stream water that is often full of bacteria from the
water buffalo feces upstream). Funny that Unicef would sponsor such a
program when locals can afford satellite dishes. Worse, most tanks
were sitting in the yards without any water pipe leading in/out of
them; I peeked in one, and it was used to store grain (probably
rice). Nice try, Unicef, but you need to teach a man how to fish, not
just hand them a fishing pole and expect them to figure out how to use
it on their own. My honest guess, though, is that there was an attempt
at teaching them: Unicef has enough experience on that front. It's
more likely that changing life-long habits of a proud and headstrong
people is sometimes impossible: if I'm not sick, then my water is
fine, so I'd rather use my Unicef tank for something I really need
(storage) instead of something I don't think I need. Makes sense to
me.
As soon as we arrived in Sapa, and the doors of the minivan opened, we
were mobbed by Hmong! They are a mountain minority, and sport
wonderfully colorful outfits. They are also pushy, persistent sellers,
and if you buy one item from them, you'll only get mobbed even more
because your forehead is instantly marked with the word
SUCKER in magic Hmong invisible ink. We made it past the mob
to our hotel, but after we settled in, our group had to leave again
for a field trip. As soon as we got out of the hotel, we got
surrounded by Hmong again. Some group members impulsively bought stuff
(at very high prices despite some haggling they did), which attracted
additional Hmong. All-in-all, it took us over fifteen minutes to get
past the hotel entrance and into our van which we were told would take
us to see an authentic Hmong village. How authentic? You see, the
village is an old village 3 miles from Sapa, which means it starts at
the very edge of town (which makes you wonder why we took the van
there, until you realize that the average age of the group required
it). So, on one hand, it is authentic, in the sense that it is an old
settlement; on the other hand, a village so close to Sapa was bound to
experience the cultural infiltration of a city that has grown like a
tumor on its side. So calling it 'authentic' is somewhat
misleading... you'll see what I mean soon. Our tour guide paid an
entrance fee for us to walk down the convenient stone-paved path from
the entrance down to the village. Along the way, we saw the local
Hmong girls perform for us a local song and a dance under the watchful
eye of their teacher (they were not good students, actually, got their
steps wrong, and seemed bored to death). Of course, we had our
personal faithful escort of Hmong sellers. And we saw a genuine Hmong
house with genuine concrete flooring, and genuine electric plugs,
exactly as traditional architecture dictated as far back as... last
month. The mixed images continued until we went past the village and
reached a beautiful creek, spanned by another traditionally
constructed bridge, weaving steel and concrete in such an elegant
traditional manner. My sarcasm aside, the countryside views were
breathtaking. Also, we did see elements of traditional architecture
and lifestyle such as two huge pigs that looked just like Christine
and me. Moreover, the bizarre mix of old and modern elements as they
merge to define the modern Hmong lifestyle was intriguing (though I
still wish I could have seen a less modern setting): for example,
houses were laid out in the old style, with lofts for storage, a
hearth for cooking, etc. but they were built using new building
materials, such as metal roofing. In closing, maybe it's better for
the Hmong to abandon their traditional lifestyle --- if nothing else,
more of the jungle might survive the truly traditional expansion of
rice paddies along the mountain side (which look like big carved
staircases).
In the late afternoon, we took off for another trip, this time an
official tour walk (i.e. the route and destination were prescribed by
the tour guide). And a few yards out of the hotel, I saw a sign that
described our destination most accurately: we were heading for the
"Hamrong [Dragon Jaw] Tourist Mountain". So we did go up the mountain,
where we encountered more Hmong sellers, but thankfully very few of
them (relative to the tourists present) and all had their selling
spots (i.e. didn't haunt the tourists, who instead flocked to them...
God knows why they did so after the haunting they get in downtown
Sapa). The gardens were very pretty --- except that they were totally
out place relative to their surroundings: manicured flower beds, and
all the other trimmings of a French garden. In a way, it's an accurate
reflection of Sapa's history as an area which had a large colonial
presence during its French period. In a different way, the particular
aesthetics were questionable as such a garden just doesn't look right
with a pagoda in the background or the bamboo trees and vertical rock
sides of the hills surrounding it. Maybe it was the cognitive
dissonance that turned me off. Anyway, once we reached the flower
beds, the tour guide told us to turn back because the rest of the tour
group didn't want to go up the hill to reach the vista point on the
very top of the tourist mountain. Like hell we would turn
back. Instead, we left the tour group, and plodded forth; the views
from the top were indeed breathtaking with the flower garden below,
Sapa even lower, and the mountains all around.
There were also three cute Hmong girls up there, just playing. No
pushy selling, just playing around on the rocks --- they were as agile
as mountain goats. It was very nice to have seen that sight, which
really felt like the only authentic glimpse into the old Hmong
lifestyle (the Hmong sellers, ironically, are indeed representative of
the present Hmong lifestyle and thus, in a perverse way,
authentic). And so Christine bought a few bracelets from them --- no
bargaining, and still she got a price at the fraction of the cost the
rest of our group had paid for identical items earlier. I was very
proud of that move on her part, rewarding non-pushy sellers and
getting a fair price without bargaining.
Once down the mountain, we tried to locate the rest of the group, but
our homing beacons could not locate the other drones. So we walked the
streets, seeing odd sights like boys and girls in Hmong clothing
playing Hacky sack. Eventually, we all met at the hotel and had dinner
nearby (always at the same place, of course, namely the single
restaurant approved by Saigon Tourist).
After dinner, the group (young and less young included) all went to a
bar! No, no, it's not a regular bar. It's a bar, but during Fridays
and Saturdays, it is a place where locals showcase local dances and
music for a couple of hours. There is no fee to get in, but you are
expected to buy a drink; whether the locals see any of the money, I
don't know. As Christine wrote in her entry, the whole business about
who benefits from tourism in Sapa is murky. Anyway, the oddest feature
of the 20 or so short performances we saw was that one Hmong was in
90% of them. He was:
A very talented young man who thoroughly impressed me. Especially when
he played Hmong music instruments. The first was... a leaf! Yup, just
a leaf, which you stick in front of your mouth, blow air, and as the
leaf vibrates, it makes a sound; that's relatively easy, but try
carrying a tune that way. The other instrument was an unwieldy sort of
thing that looked like a yard-long sailboat. You blow air through the
tip of its main mast. What was truly impressive is that the guy danced
while playing, and not just simple dancing, but all sorts of leaps and
rolls. Amazing!
After the bar, I stayed up a good part of the night grading finals. So
I was still awake around 2a when the love market takes place. As
Christine wrote in her entry, this is a local custom for married
people to have one-night affairs in a socially acceptable manner; or
for unmarried people to have a one-night stand with somebody (but if
the girl gets pregnant, marriage must follow). Anyway, this custom is
old, but in recent years it has become a tourist attraction with more
tourists going to gawk than locals participating. Since it is a major
draw for tourists (why do you think we got the night train to get
there instead of going a couple of days later?), when the locals
objected to the presence of tourists the government simply told them
"Shut up and keep mating". The locals threatened to end the custom,
and eventually a compromise was reached whereby the market now takes
place at 2a instead of 9p. Anyway, the rest of the group (and
Christine) were sound asleep at 2a, but I was awake. I thought about
waking up Christine, but then I realized that going to the market
would be the worst thing I could do: those people want to be left
alone, so just let them be. And we did: I finished grading the finals,
and caught some Z's.
The next day, we went for more shopping. First, the group scouted the
local Sapa market; I slept through this ordeal. After lunch (my
breakfast), Christine and I walked through the town ourselves,
including the market (but, doing no shopping, this part was
fast). Interestingly, all the sellers (in the market and on
the streets) were women; what Hmong men do is still a mystery to
me. One of them is a dancer/musician/singer, and a few are guides who
take backpackers up Fansipan or on multi-day trecks through the
mountains, but I'm sure there are more. It's hard to tell partly
because it was hard for me to tell them apart from Vietnamese men
because, unlike Hmong women, many Hmong men wear non-traditional
western clothing. And we also saw the stereotypical American tourist
buying an overpriced scarf (she didn't bargain), and she then insisted
that the local who sold her the scarf take a photo of her. It was
hilarious seeing her insist while trying to instruct the local how to
use a camera in pantomime... What she was thinking is truly beyond
me. We also went through the food area which Christine described in
her log entry. What she did not cover was the short treck through the
meat market section where you can see very, very clearly where your
food comes from. Meat is not nicely wrapped up in sterile
cellophane-wrapped packages; it's sitting out in large pieces, some
not yet skinned (a pig ear here, a cow leg there), with flies all over
and blood aplenty on the floor. Yet again, the thought of eating meat
somehow became even less appealing.
After the market, we walked through the outskirts of town where
construction is rampant. Large hotels, each obscuring the view of the
one behind it, gobbling up the locals' huts, gardens, and rice
paddies. Like an ugly monstrous cow slowly grazing on the
mountainside. The bitter irony is that our money sponsors all this
because, after all, we did stay in one of those hotels. My conscience,
which was already awakened the night before when considering a visit
to the love market, started acting up again.
In the afternoon, we left Sapa to continue shopping at a Red Dao
village. They are another minority, in the same general mountain
area. While their culture, language, and traditional dresses (sported
only by women these days as I didn't see a single man in non-western
clothing) are distinct from the Hmong, their tourist haunting is
identical (thought the selling pitch is slightly different). As soon
as our minivan stopped there, we were surrounded by fifteen or so
locals selling stuff. The tour itself was a total travesty: we walked
one mile (escorted without a single break by the local entourage of
sellers) to a house showcasing the local's lifestyle. That house
seemed abandoned to me, and I did have a chance to explore it more
than the others because the locals quickly figured out I wasn't buying
anything and left me alone. But when I tried to walk further down the
trail on my own to exlore further, the tour guide called me
back. Clearly, I was not allowed to deviate from the group and heaven
forbid I would set my eyes on unauthorized sights.
The Red Dao have a somewhat different selling approach than the
Hmong. The Hmong go straight to the chase, sticking their wares right
under your nose and saying "want this?" or "buy this". The Red Dao
take the more roundabout route starting with what seems like regular
conversation such as "What is your name?", "Where do you come
from?". Then they start selling. It's very interesting to see that
their approach is more like the approach of US insurance salesmen who
try to build a relationship with their customers. Their interest is
equally fake, as the following experiment proved... I noticed that the
Q & A sessions were always the same. Here's the one between a girl
of 15 and Christine:
Girl: What is your name?
Christine: Christine. What is yours?
Girl: [says her name]
[pause]
Girl: How old are you?
Christine: 26. How old are you?
Girl: 15
When the same girl came to me, I changed my responses, yet I got the
same replies:
Girl: What is your name?
Toli: Toli. Do you know this name?
Girl: [says her name]
[pause]
Girl: How old are you?
Toli: How old do you think I am?
Girl: 15
You get the point. Besides a certain standard drill, and basic numbers
to negotiate prices, most locals lack a substantial knowledge of
English (to be fair, there are exceptions). And therefore little
opportunity to share any information regarding local culture. Oh
well. Now you see why the tourist in the market had to resort to
pantomime to get the Hmong woman to take a photo of her.
Our trip to Sapa ended by returning to Lao Cai. Before heading for the
same restaurant as before (naturally, or a certain comrade would
blacklist our group), we went to the border bridge. Lao Cai borders
China, and it was quite a strange sight to sit on one end of the
bridge, look across, and see all signs in a different (equally
incomprehensible to me) language. In fact, right across, there was a
big building that is used as a trading post by Chinese and
Vietnamese. You can even buy the sellers (the people) themselves, as
they are mostly poor youngsters from the area, and the market is
frequentled by relatively affluent tourists and business people. Sad,
but quite ironic to see such extreme capitalism (everything on sale)
on the border between two communist countries.
Right before the restaurant, we had to pay a mandatory tip to our
driver (not the driver who will take us to Saigon, but the local who
took us to Sapa and back). That was a pisser --- the guy drove like a
maniac, and deserved no tip at all. But such is a Borg unimatrix:
whatever the matrix decides, each drone does. Oh well. Let's encourage
bad drivers, shall we?
In closing, I'd like to come back to Sapa someday. Without a tour
group. And stay in a hut. And backpack to remote villages. Maybe even
wear fancy pants. But I know I have to do this soon, before tourism
changes it all. The men have already gone extinct, it seems, and the
women may follow soon.